Despite three decades of reform, China's electricity sector is still organized by a “new reformed plan” where capacity investment has been liberalized but prices and production remain controlled. This paper examines the impact of the current plan prices on end-users with reference to the...

Theoretical and empirical evidence is presented to show that inefficient power firms in China are subsidised by the state through the ability to charge high electricity prices and the creation of a “soft price constraint†on costs. This cost inefficiency challenges the merits of...

This introduction is to highlight comprehensively the Chinese electricity industry for issues related to the institutional reform, capacity growth, pricing regime, technology development, supply structure and new investment in upgrading electric power grids. Through reviews of statistics and...

We apply the stochastic frontier of translog production function to estimate the efficiencies of Chinese coal-fired power plants, using a survey sample of 300 power plants over 5 years from 2004 to 2008 for estimation. By taking into account, the ages of generators and a technological factor...

We investigate the effects of market structure on bank profitability in 40 emerging and advanced economies. We find that bank profitability in relation to market structure is different between developed and emerging banking markets. First, in developed banking sectors, profitability is...

This study examines the value relevance of the voluntary embedded value (EV) disclosures by publicly listed British life insurers pre and post the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in 2005. It provides evidence for the first time that the voluntary European...